Monday 11 January 2010

Three months' worth of beanies
- some photos as promised

As I've said before, beanies are good travelling companions: knitted on circulars there's no danger of losing a needle and knitted in the round there's no need to get to the end of the row! They're also good for watching television when I really want to pay attention. And when the beanies are knitted for persons unknown, it doesn't matter what size they are - each will fit someone!

So here, in no particular order, are the beanies you haven't seen before. Most of them are knitted in leftover Carnival acrylic given to me by mum.

This one is in carnival colours!


A self striping yarn in soft colours.


This one started with the left overs of the previous beanie then four more yarns were added!



This one pooled in an interesting
fashion!

Showing here are two looks from different sides of the same beanie.






This one provoked my brother to ask for a Hawthorn (Australian Rules football team) beanie for his daughter due late March!


 This one is a sunhat beanie - it didn't work as I had planned but it still works as a beanie.


 This is the chevron version of the Moda Vera "Spell" beanies I seem to have been knitting forever!


I also knitted three regular beanies from the same yarn but I think you've seen enough of this yarn.

Then there was the Skyline yarn Leonie sent when destashing her "ack".
This yarn is 80% wool and 20% polyamide and has the most striking stitch definition of any yarn I have ever seen (including cotton).
It is, however, not a nice yarn to work with - feels more like nylon than wool.
This photo doesn't do the beanie justice but unfortunately I had no human head to model this beanie.



I was running out of pink yarn so I created a stranded colour ("fair isle") version.
Notice the stitch definition which works so beautifully in this beanie.
Thanks Leonie - I'm looking forward to dyeing the rest and seeing how it turns out.
This is DD's favourite - it nearly didn't end up in the charity collection at all!! LOL



And now, a self-striped beanie of my own hand dyed acrylic. It's funny how it striped. There are twenty or so stiches to a colour repeat but the way they kept ending up near each other created stripes but not pooling! Handpainted yarns are always fascinating!




And finally, a beanie as part of an ensemble which includes Elizabeth Zimmermann's February Baby Sweater (without buttons) and "Playful" socks from Babies and Toddlers: A Knitters' Dozen. All these are knitted in three different but coordinating handpainted acrylic yarns. Amazingly, these yarns are all supersoft from going through the dyeing process.



Not shown are the lenghwise garter stitch scarf I knitted from odds and ends of acrylic yarn while visiting dad in hospital or the bed socks I knitted for him because his feet were cold but which he was not allowed to wear.

Nor can I show you the baby blanket I knitted in Cleckheaton Baby Zhivago (colourway as shown) over 160 stitches on 5mm needles. It had a garter stitch border and a pattern stitch of ten stitches stocking stitch and then stitches reverse stocking stitch over 14 rows then reverse the squares. Between the garter stitch border and the blanket proper there was a yarn-over done on the right side rows to differentiate the border from the reverse stocking stitch. I designed the blanket so my mother could knit it during her stress but I ended up knitting it all myself. I cast on Tuesday night, knitted at home and the hospital and cast off and sewed in the ends on Saturday night. Four days for a 36" square - not bad! I didn't block it because all my blocking supplies were at home in Sydney and the yarn is 50% acrylic so probably wouldn't block anyway! The finished blanket was wrapped before I had a chance to take a photo and will be given to my brother and SIL on the birth of their daughter in about eleven weeks.


PS Leonie, I can't show you the knitting in the colour I didn't like - I pulled it out days ago. If you want to check the colour, It is Bendigo Luxury "Leaf".

5 comments:

  1. Wow, that is a lot of stress busting knitting going on!

    I love the fair isle hat and the sweater set-just beautiful!

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  2. thats a lot of hats!

    they look lovely though.

    well done :)

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  3. Wow! So many beanies!! What a way to start 2010!
    I hope things have settled down and are looking up (if you'll forgive the confused directions), and that your grandchild arrives on time and perfect.

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  4. Glad that the yarn has come in useful. It really does feel like plastic while you are knitting it but improves once done and does have such wonderful stitch efinition especially in the fair isle hat. What interesting colour are you going to dye the rest of the white??
    The hat knitting that you do for chrarities is really inspiring.
    Oh and the green looked ok on the shade card but I suppose it depends on what your monitor did to it compared to real life. Do you have their shade cards? They are able to send them out so that you know what the colours will be like in real life. Maybe the green is just destined to become something else....

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